Recently, there has been developed of a power control device having a physical interface capable of intercommunication in addition to a power supply interface. For example, it is possible to configure a setting of a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) or to notify a server of an occurrence of anomaly in a UPS by coupling the server PC with the UPS via above power control device (see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application Publication No. 2000-163164).
A conventional power control device mainly aims to control a power supply from a UPS or the like to a device, and its communication function is limited. For example, when configuring the setting of the power control device from the server PC or when performing communication between a server PC and a device that are coupled to a common power control device, it is necessary to set up a communication environment separately. Consequently, an installation space and cost of a network become large. Moreover, when a server PC has only a single communication resource, the communication resource is occupied by communication with the power control device.